On Monday, 24 hours before taking the plane to Manchester for the Taekwondo European Championship, Raúl Martínez picked up the phone after the last afternoon training session.
“Here we continue, in the fight, you should never give me up for dead…”.
This Friday, Martínez, about to turn 32, an age that taekwondists do not usually reach -because of the blows and pain in the joints, crushed in combat- has won silver in the -87 kg category.
It was gold until five seconds before the end of the third round, but Croatian Ivan Sapina tied (11-11), ten years his junior, and the medal was decided on the gold point.
The Croatian was imposed by records: that is, the times you touch the opponent's chest and helmet, but without enough power to score the point.
Martínez entered the tatami with a smile similar to that of Adriana Cerezo in Tokyo, that of serenity and tranquility.
Silver -her best result in the senior category- has been achieved with the sole expectation of feeling well and competing.
She has achieved it after a long period of reflection and mourning, which meant that she was eliminated in the round of 16 at the Tokyo Games.
She has done it after even asking if she was worth following.
At her age.
This is how he explains it, the
capi
, the
grandfather
, as they call him in the selection group, with the serenity of having met again.
"It was hard.
My head only came to the Tokyo Games, I gave everything for four years to be there, and the feeling I had is that I did not foresee what would come after a result that was not expected.
Oysters, now what?
There was no plan B. For not having, there was neither planned nor the vacations of the summer of the Games.
It was just Tokyo, the Games, Tokyo, the Games.
"I didn't have a plan B, it's also that at my age... I didn't think about what was going to happen next, my head only went up to that moment and always waiting for a good result."
More information
Adriana Cerezo, bronze in the European taekwondo after the emotional tsunami of the Olympic silver
And when it doesn't come, as in his case, everyone doesn't know what goes on in the head of an elite athlete and even more so in that of someone from the (badly) called minority sports.
Because, when the focus of media attention of the Games is turned off, everything that ensues is usually turned off.
Martínez says that he rediscovered himself leaning on his family, on his wife and on his parents, who were in the stands of the Manchester Arena this Friday.
And he admits, apologizing if it sounds cheesy, that he didn't really dislike taekwondo, but that it was like going through mourning.
“The first weeks I didn't want to know anything about taekwondo or sports, and I didn't want to see a lot of people because logically they wanted to talk about it and I wasn't ready to do it yet.
Because I didn't know what had happened, nor what would happen next.
Then you start to analyze the mistakes [of the combat of the Games, in the -80kg category], you feel impotence, anger.
You go through all kinds of sensations and emotions.
It's like mourning, because what you've been doing and caring for all your life has touched you."
And perhaps the worst moment was when he had to return to the tatami, start the season, do it at 31 years old and surrounded by youngsters whom he has cared for and made grow day in and day out.
Like Adrián Vicente, who this Friday got the bronze in -58kg.
Miguel Ángel Herranz, his coach and head of the men's team, gave Raúl his time.
He gave her more vacations than the others.
“I started training and thought: what for?
Why am I going to continue?
What do I do here?
Maikel [Herranz] had a lot of influence there because he let me disconnect, but he didn't let me disconnect.
He gave me my space, he told me that even if he was a senior competitor he didn't see me leaving taekwondo”.
Finally he did not leave it.
She thought that she still had “little things to give”.
And she took it in another way.
He started competing at the weight above his category -87kg (which is not Olympic weight) so he didn't have to lose kilos to compete at -80kg.
“The goal was to get back into training.
Little by little, without big plans.
In the Paris and Bosnia Open [in November] it turns out that, without being in great shape, he won gold and silver.
It was important on a personal level, to be where I am today.”
Climbed on the podium of a European that in autumn did not even go through his head.
"Not the European Championship, not even 2022. I was only thinking about 2021, about feeling competitive again because I didn't want to leave it with the bad taste of Tokyo."
And so he went to Manchester.
He confesses that changing categories was the challenge that has helped him stay plugged in.
He told on Monday that the rival to watch was, precisely, Sapina.
“When I don't consider anything, the best results come.
I'm going to Manchester like this, to compete and then we'll see…”.
We'll see is a medal that he did not have in his record and the one that has made him happiest, because of how he has arrived.
Paris 2024?
“When I start a cycle I never start it thinking about the Games.
My conscience does not think about it, but my subconscious does…”.
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